Windham seeking new town assessor

By Ed Pierce

Windham will identify and interview candidates for the town assessor position following the departure of Elisa Marr, who will join Portland as its new city assessor.

Elisa Marr has been hired as the new city
assessor for the City of Portland. She has
served as Windham's town assessor since
December 2015. COURTESY PHOTO 

The Portland City Council approved hiring Marr as its assessor during a meeting Monday evening. She has served as the assessor for the Town of Windham since December 2015.

Prior to assuming duties of town assessor for Windham, Marr had worked as the town’s assistant assessor and GIS technician handling cartography for the town dating back to April 2006. Her experience includes working as the GIS Coordinator for the Town of Raymond from July 1998 to April 2006.

Marr is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Maine Association of Assessing Officers.

The Windham Assessor's Office is responsible for the valuation of all taxable property in Windham, both real estate and personal property. It is also a center of information for property owners, title companies, real estate brokers and appraisers, attorneys, and other departments and agencies in the community.

The assessor maintains historical information as well as current data about properties such as ownership, deeds, inventories of land and structures, property characteristics, and town maps. The office administers any property tax exemption programs enacted by the Maine Legislature such as veterans, blind, and homestead exemptions.

The town assessor also oversees department staff and continually updates assessments in Windham to reflect new construction, building additions, and demolitions. The office also develops and administers the department’s budget and manages all departmental resources.

Other duties of the Windham Town Assessor include conducting sales ratio studies, analyzing and researching market trends in property values, and taking corrective action when necessary to maintain equity. The assessor updates and maintains Windham’s tax maps which includes plotting parcel splits and updating valuation records, prepares municipal valuation returns, turnaround documents, and tax commitment book and documents, meets and/or corresponds with taxpayers to answer questions and resolve problems, reviews requests for abatement and performs follow up procedures according to abatement law.

The office oversees processing of all types of property tax exemption requests, works with the Windham Town Council and the Windham Town Manager to develop a plan to address any public complaints and finds effective means of communicating information and educating the department, the Town Manager, and the public regarding to assessing issues affecting Windham.

Once a final candidate has been recommended by Windham Town manager Barry Tibbetts to replace Marr as Windham Town Assessor, members of the Windham Town Council will vote on the recommendation. <